PathToReduceSorrow1-16
By Periyava
Translation: V. Krishnaraj
துக்கச் சுமை குறைய வழி : தெய்வத்தின் குரல் (முதல் பகுதி)
Path To Reduce Sorrow: Deivathin Kural (Part One)
http://www.kamakoti.org/tamil/part1kural16.htm

 
We all should try to obtain The Supreme God’s true Spiritual Wisdom. What is this Jñāṉam? There is nothing other than The Supreme God. That Supreme Singleton appears as many. If you let your mind to delve into these disparate manifestations, there are side effects: mental agitation, perception of superiority or inferiority, and the consequential sorrows. If you turn your mind away from the manifestations and apprehend their Causal Agent, the wandering thoughts without the hassle gravitate towards The Supreme God. Knowing him as One Supreme God, where is the mental agitation or consciousness about status? In that steady state, we can enjoy perpetual happiness.  
 Life on earth has its pleasures. But it is permanent. How could we make exogenous happiness permanent? The exogenous entities may go right out of the hand. Happiness derived from such things may be short-lived and disappears next minute. When tree branches with thick foliage move in the wind, the sunlight passes through the intervening spaces. The next minute, the shade comes back, when the wind stops moving the branches. Likewise, in the thick of sorrow, happiness pops its head and runs away. Eternal happiness is to know the One, the Causal Agent of the world.
Immeasurable sorrows, afflicting life on earth is a given. Others may think that the moneyed man and the high official are free of difficulties. Thinking in that strain, others may struggle to amass wealth and rise to a high position. Just ask the rich and the powerful. They will tell you of their difficulties. We are sitting on Thiṇṇai (raised platform in the fore of the house). If we fall off the Thiṇṇai, we escape with abrasions and sprains. The rich, the high and the mighty live in a multistory house with terrace… If he falls off the terrace, he sustains bone fractures and life-threatening injuries. When a person has money and a high position with conveniences, he worries more about not losing what he has than enjoying his conveniences. No one says he is all happiness.  Everyone thinks of himself as a great intellectual, an honest person, and a handsome man. The miserable one also thinks of himself as…

 

Sorrow is congenital. This is the fruit from past life Karma, for which we have cast the seed earlier (in the past life). There is no escape from this eventuality.
There is a way to live with peace and tranquillity and tolerating the hardship due to Karma. There is a way not to upload more Karma into the Karmic bag and make it bigger. The way as said earlier is Jñāṉam.
There is no perception of difficulty, when a person is afflicted with mental bewilderment and become inert. The difficulty from insanity does not have deep roots. With mental bewilderment, daily happiness is absent. In sleep, there is no sorrow. When we do not have the awareness in sleep we are happy. A Jñāṉi remains always awake and enjoys everlasting pleasure. Not that he has no bodily discomfort. He does not have mental distress. Afflictions from external causes do not bother him.
There is no feeling of heaviness if you move a water-filled vessel below the surface of the water. But the same vessel above the water levels feels heavy. Heavy objects are easily moved below surface of the water. Likewise, we should submerge our sorrows in the water of Jñāṉa. The causes of sorrows remain but the sorrows become lighter as water-filled vessel moves easily below the surface of the water.